Around half an hour after Twitter "discovered" the amusingly-musical website of Tory candidate Greg Knight, it had moved on to the next big thing – Gordon Brown calling a 65-year-old Rochdale woman "bigoted".

So #bigotgate soon began to trend on the site worldwide and up popped fake accounts for Gillian Duffy, who is probably entitled to feel mystified since she had only popped out for a loaf of bread when she ran into the prime minister and an open mic.

And it carried on and on. Above is a map showing Twitter trends from around 3.30pm this afternoon, when the UK's two major 24 news channels turned over their live coverage for more than 45 minutes to rolling footage of a closed door.